If Teachers Were Treated Like Doctors…

If you make a few minor substitutions, Tuesday’s Washington Post article on health care reform could just as easily apply to education:

In many respects, American doctors teachers today labor much the way their counterparts did 50 years ago….They keep their records on paper in longhand….They have little idea about how their skills compare to those of fellow practitioners, nor do most know what their patients students really think about the care they give….

Fifty years from now, it is likely that almost all doctors teachers will be members of teams that include case managers, social workers, dietitians, telephone counselors, data crunchers, guideline instructors, performance evaluators and external reviewers. They will be parts of organizations (which either employ them or contract with them) that are responsible for patients students in and out of the hospital school, in sickness and in health, over decades.

The records of what they do for a patient student — and what every other doctor teacher does — will be in electronic form, accessible from any computer. Software will gently remind them what to consider as they treat, and try to prevent, diseases teach. How the patients students fare will be measured and publicized, and used in part to judge practitioners’ performance. At the same time, the health-care education organizations, aided by the government, will make an effort to let caregivers know the “best practices” they’re expected to follow….

To gain such savings, the organizations would have to keep patients healthy students learning. That, in turn, would require health-care workers educators to perform services generally not done by doctors teachers (or done only occasionally), such as home visits, medication monitoring, dietary counseling and intensive patient education.

The potential good news for doctors (and teachers)?

“It appears that when a doctor happens to be in a place that moves to a ‘medical home’ model, they can turn their frustration into excitement again. That is huge,” said J. Fred Ralston Jr., president of the American College of Physicians. “We are getting reports that patients are happy, physicians are happy and that, in at least some cases, [these new sorts of practices] are saving money.”

Read the entire article. There’s a lot to learn, both good and bad, from our country’s efforts to improve health care.

Tagged as: Data Systems, Electronic Learning Record, Health and Education, Smarter Data Systems, Teacher Quality, Teachers Work, Technology